Perth prisoner drug addict jailed after violence against pregnant partners in Inverness and Alness
A 32-year-old drug addict who had several partners over an 11-year period during which he assaulted two of them when they were pregnant and threatened to inject a third woman with heroin has been jailed for a total of 40 months.
Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald was told the harrowing details of how Greg Stewart, a prisoner on remand at Perth, but who has connections with Alness and Inverness, abused the trio by assaulting them, threatening them, and calling them derogatory names in fits of temper.
Stewart pleaded guilty at Inverness Sheriff Court to four charges - two of assault, one of threatening behaviour and one of a campaign of domestic abuse which included violence.
Sentencing Stewart, the sheriff told him: "These were some of the most vicious, nasty and appalling offences I have heard in a long time involving repeated violence."
She backdated the prison term to June 10, 2024 when he was remanded in custody.
Defence solicitor Rory Gowans explained that his client had been addicted to heroin since he was 16 years old, had ADHD and autism.
"Heroin has blighted his life and he accepts custody is inevitable,” he said. “He hopes to rebuild his life on his release. The relationships were initially good but turned bad which was his fault."
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that Stewart's first victim had been in a relationship with him between an unknown date in 2011 and November 2013. She moved in with him to a property in Braeface Park, Alness around January 2013 on finding out she was pregnant to him.
Mrs Gair said: "She describes the accused as controlling and angry all the time. On multiple occasions he would grab her by the wrists and squeeze them tight, while screaming in her face.
"The behaviour caused her concern about her unborn child. He would call her useless and worthless and she felt very isolated during her pregnancy. The effects of this have been life-changing."
Mrs Gair described one occasion in August or September 2013 where the woman sought refuge in a bathroom but he pushed the door so hard it hit her on the left side of her stomach and she was left with bruising. The child was born in October 2013 and the relationship ended a month later.
The second victim moved in with him to properties in Inverness and Ardersier in their relationship which lasted from May 2016 to January 2021 and she described it as "physically and emotionally abusive throughout". He would call her derogatory and offensive names and threatened to blow up her house and make it look like a gas leak.
Stewart would push her and punch her and after she found out she was pregnant in May 2018, they argued and she sought refuge in the bathroom where he pushed his way in.
"He then put his hands around her throat and said 'you ain't going to be no mother to my child'. She was terrified and screaming at him to let her go."
The couple again moved back to another property in Inverness's St Valery Avenue in January 2019 a month before their daughter was born. In the garden, he grabbed her mobile phone as she was messaging a friend and smashed it on the ground, Mrs Gair added.
The relationship ended in January 2021.
The court heard that in September that year, Stewart started another relationship and they shared a property in Glendoe Terrace, Inverness. He would leave her to pay all the bills, call her names and constantly ask her for money for drugs.
The woman was forced to administer heroin into his arm but when she refused, he pinned her to the bed, took the syringe of heroin and said: 'I'll inject you with this and then you'll see how it feels.'
"She managed to push him off with her feet,” Mrs Gair said. “That relationship ended at the beginning of November 2022."
